Steve Schmidt breaks Guinness World Record in teeth nail-pulling

Steve Schmidt uses his teeth to pull a nail out of a board after beating a Guinness World Record during the powerlifting event at the Show-Me State Games at Lange Middle School on Saturday.
|Kylee Gregg

Steve Schmidt looks to Joe Garcia, Show-Me State Games powerlifting commissioner, for a signal to hammer a nail into a piece of wood during the powerlifting event on Saturday at Lange Middle School. Schmidt used his teeth to pull five nails out of a board in less than 17 seconds, beating the Guinness World Record by more than five seconds.
|Kylee Gregg

Steve Schmidt participates in an additional competition to pull out as many nails as he can with his teeth in under a minute. The event was held during an intermission at the Show-Me State Games powerlifting event on Saturday at Lange Middle School.
|Kylee Gregg

Steve Schmidt began pulling nails out of boards with his teeth last Thanksgiving. He secured his third Guinness World Record on Saturday during an intermission at the Show-Me State Games powerlifting event at Lange Middle School.¦Kylee Gregg

Schmidt looked relieved. He had just captured his third Guinness World Record.

"I was hoping that I didn't fail," Schmidt, 59, said.

During the powerlifting competition intermission at Saturday's Show-Me State Games, Schmidt broke the record for the "Fastest Time to Remove 5 Nails from Wood with the Teeth."

The previous record, set last July, was five nails in 22.21 seconds. Schmidt's official time will be reviewed by the Guinness World Record office in London — but both are record-breaking times.

Before the attempt, Schmidt proved that his wood and nails met the Guinness requirements. Nails had to be at least 3.15 inches long, 0.12 inches thick, and hammered at least halfway into a wood that scores at least 300 on the Janka Hardness Test, which measures wood hardness.

Schmidt was allowed to place two-by-four-inch cloths on top of each nail to keep metal off his teeth.

After the specifics were accounted for, Schmidt started pulling each nail from the wood and spitting it onto the floor.

He demonstrated his skill again after he broke the record, this time pulling as many nails as possible from two long wood blocks within one minute. He extracted 26.

Schmidt's previous Guinness records include lifting 220.5 pounds 50 times with his teeth in January 2010 and breaking the record number of teeth lifts in 2013. For the first record, he more than doubled the previous record of 24 repetitions using the same weight. For the second, he broke the German-held record of 54 reps with 60 reps.

Schmidt uses a leather mouth guard fastened to a chain that attaches to weights. He said the appeal of breaking world records is the challenge.

"I want to challenge myself," he said. "I want to show (people) I'm the best at what I do."

Schmidt, who weighs 220 pounds and stands 5 feet 10 inches tall, has been powerlifting with his body since the late 1970s, but picked up the sport of nail-pulling with his teeth this past Thanksgiving. A German game show called "Unschlagbar", which means "Unbeatable", invited Schmidt to participate in a contest where he competed against two people in pulling nails with teeth.

"It was a free trip, and I had never done it before," Schmidt said. "But I said yes, I want to see if I could do it."

When he is not busy cattle farming in Leslie, Schmidt practices lifting with his teeth once every 5 days for 45 minutes. He protects his teeth by flossing every night, brushing twice a day, staying away from sugar and using flouride-free toothpaste.